Living Happily Ever After
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Happy Anniversary

Date: March 14, 2012  Author: Andrea Merriman

“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity.  The order varies for any given year.” (Paul Sweeney)

And then, before we knew it, our first wedding anniversary was upon us.

We’d made it not just three Valentine’s Days but through everything the premarital counselor had warned us about regarding remarriage, plus the usual marriage challenges, plus the typical first year of marriage adjustments and learning experiences as well as everything else life had brought our way in one year. Looking back, the whirlwind of experiences of just that one year almost makes my head spin! I feel like Steve Jobs who said, “Each year has been so robust with problems and successes and learning experiences and human experienes that a year is a lifetime at Apple. So this has been ten lifetimes.”

The honest assessment of this remarriage “lifetime?” As with life, some of it is bordering on perfection; some of it hasn’t gone as planned;  much of it has been better than anticipated; and then there are a few things we’re not going to stress over right now, we’re simply going to give them time and trust they will improve in the coming years. I’ve learned for myself again and again in this unexpected life that time is a great healer; that things have a way of coming together, improving and resolving themselves, with time. And I’ve been told over and over again by those who have lived through remarriage, combining worlds and families and everything else, that things will be different (and even better) seven years down the road. Even more to celebrate.

More anniversaries to look forward to.

So here’s to love, marriage, the blessing of finding the one you love and getting to marry them, family, life and every part of the “happily ever after”—including the few and far between less happy moments that are a part of it all. Here’s to making marriage work, that it may never be said of us: “She’s been married so many times she has rice marks on her face.” (Henny Youngman)

Happy Birthday

Date: August 31, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Brilliantly lit from stem to stern, she looked like a sagging birthday cake.” (Walter Lord)

Last week, I turned 44 years old and my husband turned 50 years old. On the same day. I remember the night I found out we shared the same birth date…and how I wasn’t sure I was thrilled about that. Second marriage moment #23? I changed my mind!

It happened like this.

My husband came home from work one day, said he found a great hotel deal in Las Vegas and that he thought we should take advantage of it to celebrate our birthdays. It immediately hit me like a ton of bricks: sharing a birthday with my husband just might not be too bad! I agreed to go.

But sadly, as the birthday approached, I began to have second thoughts: we shouldn’t spend the money, I’d never not been with my children on my birthday before, work was busy, who would supervise the children while we were gone? Then shortly before the trip, an extended family member scheduled a wedding we needed to attend and my husband announced, “I don’t think we can do both. Maybe we shouldn’t go to Las Vegas.”

As he voiced what I had been thinking and feeling all along, I suddenly realized how much I wanted to go. How important it was, to me, to go. (I’m not sure why. But I will say in a remarriage, in my experience, there are so many things already decided for you. It is never just you and your husband, alone, and deciding what you want or what is best for you and then doing that. You begin your marriage and attempt to build a new family, with two other already existing families, and children, in place. You never, or rarely, have the luxury of considering only your needs—not to mention you start out your marriage with so many things you can’t control, or do, due to the choices of others.) Maybe it was just a moment of stubbornness where I couldn’t have one more person make one more choice and decide something for me, or have one more person’s choice affect my plans and my life, but for some reason I felt it was important to get away to Las Vegas with my new husband.

So I said, “It’s my birthday. It’s your birthday. It’s our six month wedding anniversary. You got a great deal on a hotel. There isn’t a present or gift I want. And although every remarried couple we know told us the most important thing we should do as a remarried couple is to get away alone, without children, as often as we can—even every month—we haven’t done it once. I think I’m going to Vegas, and I hope you’ll join me!”

We went to Vegas.

We went cheap. We ate inexpensively. We didn’t see any shows. But we enjoyed all our hotel had to offer, and especially enjoyed our time alone together and the chance to talk and laugh together, for 57 hours, uninterrupted! Turns out, sharing your birthday with your spouse has its perks, too. When the hotel spa found out it was our birthday, they gave us a complimentary visit. And unexpectedly, my husband’s boss called and told me take my husband out to dinner for his birthday—on him. So I had crab legs (my favorite thing in the world, next to lobster) for the first time in two years—since beginning my unexpected life.

Who cares if you or your birthday cake is sagging with age or years…as long as you’re sagging on a birthday getaway with your husband? Not me.

“I should be committed to an institution immediately for even thinking I could get away with that…” (Johnny Depp)

Do You Think It Might Be The Wedding Ring?

Date: April 13, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman
“By persistently remaining single, a man converts himself into a permanent public temptation.” (Oscar Wilde)I’m thinking it might be an attractive combination. Single man, fit, hair long enough to make him look like a liberal college professor…and the women are beginning to like it! The other day #5 came home to tell me how nice women have been to him, especially lately, and that he thinks it might be the longer hair.

I asked, “Do you think it might be the wedding ring?”

He explained, “No, it was starting to happen a little before that, I think it must be the hair!”

Thank goodness he is married again, I guess, so he won’t be SUCH a temptation. He’s off the market, as am I. I have exited the single phase of life. For the second time. I can’t say I’m sorry to see it go. It was devastating to become single after 20 years of marriage and to re-enter the singles scene in my 40s, following an unexpected divorce and the trauma of a VERY unexpected life; the single life sure took some getting used to. In fact, I couldn’t imagine ever getting used to it. But I did.

In the beginning, I remember feeling so humiliated. I seriously thought everyone could tell, just by looking at me, what a loser (ie. single, a.k.a. divorced) woman I was. I was sure everyone thought I had terrible judgement, lacked intelligence, was impossible to live with or did any myriad of negative things that made someone not want to be with me and that caused my divorce.

Divorce was so contrary to anything I’d ever imagined for myself, I could hardly imagine, truly, ever being satisfied with myself and my status, but eventually I was. I wasn’t humiliated. I didn’t feel like a loser. I was just me. Andrea Merriman. Divorced single mother of four. I wasn’t embarrassed by the word “divorce” or to say it. It was my unexpected new “normal.”

Then I remarried.

And believe it or not, THAT has taken some getting used to. Again! For #5 and for me.

I’m calling them…second marriage moments. And the first one hit on the drive home from the honeymoon. Lets just say MOST of them have made me laugh:)

“Second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience.”

The One That Left Them All Behind

Date: April 8, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman
“If you want to make your dreams come true, the first thing you have to do is wake up.” (J.M. Power)

I woke up.

It was the day of my wedding.

I was calm, at peace, happy, excited and really didn’t have anything to worry about, except #5 showing up! (A snowstorm was in the forecast, and he was driving down with my two oldest children that morning.) It was getting pretty close to the time we needed to be at the Manti L.D.S. Temple, and just as I noticed that and began to worry about the snow and wonder if #5 was going to show up, I heard his voice in the kitchen.

He had arrived!

I confess, my heart did a little leap when I heard him.

I walked out to greet him and I confess, again, that my heart did another leap when I saw him. (Do I have a crazy crush, or what? I should probably marry the man!) He looked so handsome, standing there in his new wedding attire–dark suit, red tie–and his “longer” hair. (He auditioned for a film role that requires longer hair, so he’s been growing it for awhile. He was worried about the long hair and joked he’d have to photoshop his head onto our wedding photos because he looked so scroungy, but honestly, I’m kind of liking it!)

I rushed to finish getting ready, #5 soon informed me it was time to go, so I grabbed my dress and we drove to the temple.

Totally happy.

Totally in love.

Totally calm.

Totally at peace.

And then we were at the temple. As we walked toward the front doors, I couldn’t help but reflect on the previous generations of my family members who had done the very same thing at that very same temple: my parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents  on both sides and many others. It was a beautiful building and the perfect place for me to embark on an entirely new adventure (slightly more expected than the last one, I might add!)

As we walked the halls of that sacred place, climbed the famous spiral staircase built by pioneers that still stands as an engineering marvel today, and entered the room we were married in I had only one thought: “This day is worth absolutely everything I endured to get here. Every single event that led to this moment, the waiting, the enduring, the challenges, everything…I would go through every single one of them, again, to learn what I have learned and to end up here with #5 today.” I believe that sometimes we have to go through very difficult things to get to exactly where we need to be.

And then we were married. The whole thing could not have been more perfect (except for my damp palms, I don’t know why I had them because I wasn’t nervous, but that wasn’t very romantic of me; my sincerest apologies to #5.) What I remember most about my wedding is that it all couldn’t have been more perfect! Through the whole thing I kept thinking, “This is absolutely perfect! This is my favorite wedding I have ever been to!” And it was.

At the end of the ceremony, the man performing our marriage and sealing told #5 to kiss his bride–so #5 did. Afterward, the sealer commented that it was one of the lengthier, thorough, and more “romantic” kisses he had ever witnessed in the temple, and without missing a beat #5 explained, “That’s because we’ve had a lot of practice!”

Although I’m pretty sure #5 was referencing my age, since I’m a newlywed, I’ll let it slide:) But let me say this:

“Since the invention of the kiss, there have only been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind.” (“The Princess Bride”)

But I may be slightly prejudiced.:)

Wake Up Fresh And Continue

Date: April 6, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“The day before is what we bring to the day we’re actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done…” (Jose Saramago, “The Cave”)

And then it was the day before my wedding.

Those months of soul searching following the revelations that led to my unexpected life; the shock, grief and loneliness that had once been mine day in and day out during the aftermath of an unexpected divorce and move to a new state; the dating, the bachelors, the going it alone without parents or a partner came to a screeching halt.

I was getting married the very next day–if all went well.

It was a bit more complicated than the first time, though. I didn’t just have to show up at the ceremony, packed and ready to depart on a honeymoon afterward, without a care in the world.

I had to finish my work and meet some deadlines. I had grand plans to make a wedding gift for #5 and had procrastinated finishing it, so I had to get that done. I had to arrange for childcare while I was gone. I had to make sure my house was clean enough for someone to stay in during my absence and for #5 to move in to when we returned from our honeymoon. I had to make sure financial details were taken care of and that there was food in the house for my children while I was gone. I had to make sure I had not just my wedding dress and was packed for a honeymoon, but I had to make sure my children’s wedding clothes, etc…were clean, and packed, as well! LOTS of details to remember and attend to.

But I did it. I worked all day, rushed home, went to the bank, went to the grocery store, did laundry, packed, loaded the car with everything I needed to take to Ephraim, Utah, including my younger children, drove there and arrived safely that night. My sisters and their families helped with final wedding preparations. I even finished #5′s wedding gift that night, thanks to help from my sister. And after all of that, I was still in bed by midnight or 1 a.m..

My last night as a single woman was also very different than the first time. The first time, in the 1980s, I was in a hotel room with my mom and my sisters, so nervous I couldn’t sleep. My mom gave me a tranquilizer to calm me down but it didn’t help and my sister and I lay awake in bed, talking and laughing, until the wee hours of the morning. (Actually, we didn’t go to sleep until my mom reprimanded us, just like she had when we were little girls!)

But in 2011, the night before my wedding, I slept alone. In my sister’s basement. (Although she came to check on me once or twice through the night.) And I was so relaxed and calm I couldn’t believe it. I went to sleep and actually slept! However, I woke up unexpectedly at some point in the night.

I couldn’t sleep.

And then I couldn’t quit thinking. Even worse, I was thinking about things I never expected to think about–and it was hard to think about some of it: dreams I’d had as a little girl; experiences I’d shared with my parents, knowing they weren’t alive to share one of my most important of experiences, marriage to #5; everything that had led me to the new marriage opportunity, including the shocking revelations, the Ponzi scheme, the divorce, the move, the aloneness, everything I had been through and everything I had learned.

It was sort of a life in review. I think it was me, Andrea Merriman, doing some introspection on the eve of one of the most important events of my life. Allowing myself to look back one final time. I had forgiven, I had healed and was continuing to heal. I guess I was making sure I’d made peace with it all; getting ready to take a major step forward. I couldn’t help it; I had one final, brief, cry. And I went back to sleep, knowing the next time I awoke, it would be my wedding day.

“But the important thing is to lie down and fall asleep. That little nap means you wake up fresh again and can continue.” (James Levine)

Our Plan

Date: March 25, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll be happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” (Socrates)

Lets hope the engagement and marriage don’t turn #5 into a philosopher, huh? THAT would be unexpected!

When #5 and I got engaged, we never imagined we’d be engaged over 9 months. At about month 8, we came to a decision. We were discussing getting married when we received our authorization and I asked, “So when we get our papers, will we then wait another 2-3 months while we find a date that works for everyone–all of your relatives, mine, our friends and everyone else–and then plan a wedding?”

He replied, “NO. When we get our papers back, we’ll get married in days.”

Days?

“What if our papers come back on a Tuesday?” I asked.

“We’ll get married that Saturday,” he answered.

“What if our papers come back on a Wednesday?” I asked.

“We’ll get married that Saturday,” he answered.

“What about Thursday? What if our papers come back on a Thursday?” I asked.

“Hmm…Thursday…we could try for Saturday, but we may have to wait until Monday or Tuesday,” he said.

We didn’t have a wedding date. We didn’t know when it would be. And the above was the extent of our plan. But at least, after 8 months, we had a plan!

“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” (Dennis Wholey)


 

A List of Stuff

Date: February 24, 2011  Author: Andrea Merriman

“I made this list of stuff that it’s time for me to try to do.” (Rick Moody)

When you’re in your forties with four children, and you get engaged to a man in his forties with four children, there is a lot to the “simple” act of getting married. In fact, it’s not so simple. When I got engaged in May 2010, I realized in the first few days of my engagement that there was no way I was going to accomplish all that I thought I needed to prior to my wedding without making a list of everything I needed to do and remember. So I did that. I made a list.

It included things like: take an engagement photo, choose a wedding announcement, plan a wedding dinner, purchase a wedding dress, plan a wedding, plan a honeymoon, go to Colorado so my friends can meet my fiance, introduce fiance to the Utah people that are important to me, participate in premarital counseling, know fiance one year prior to marriage  (November 2010), decide financial issues, decide parenting issues, make him a wedding gift, get family organized (ie. work chart, etc…), clean out middle son’s room, clean out youngest son’s room, move middle son out of his bedroom so fiance’s son can have his own bedroom, purchase wedding rings, find a car that holds 7 people, pre-nuptial agreement, set up new step-son’s bedroom, organize home office, organize family photos, clean out garage, clean out shed, fiance participate in Christmas show “Savior of the World” at the L.D.S. Conference Center, fiance participate in Sundance summer theater “Big River”, future mother-in-law needs surgery, fiance needs surgery, save up vacation time for a 2-3 day honeymoon, save money for a wedding dinner, fiance get his home ready to sell, fiance sell his house…You get the idea. Not one of the items on my list was inconsequential or small.

It was May 2010 and our plan was to marry in September 2010. (I know. I was already setting myself up for failure! If we married in September, I wouldn’t accomplish “know fiance one year prior to marriage.” But it was the date #5 suggested, and I was trying to be o.k. with it and work toward that.)

Interestingly, by September 2010, the date we had originally planned to marry, I had only accomplished 4 things on my list of 34 things. We rescheduled our date to January 2011, and by the time that date rolled around, I had accomplished just 17 of the 34 things. Remarriage was a lot more complicated, and required a lot more work, than I’d ever imagined! We set our sights on the end of January 2011, and by the time that date came, I’d lost the list!

“A list is only as strong as its weakest link.” (Donald Knuth)

I abandoned all hope of being organized and prepared prior to remarrying. As a single mother of four children, employed full-time, there wasn’t time for that anyway.

And then tonight guess what I found? The list. Out of curiosity, I read it. I realized I had accomplished 30 of 34 things on my list, and two of those I had changed my mind about: find a car that holds 7 people and arrange a pre-nuptial agreement. I had somehow gotten almost everything done on my list. And I’d done it without the aid of a paper list!

“Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you’re generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don’t make.” (Donald Trump)

Out of The Blue

Date: November 13, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman
You have to give life credit for a few things.

For one, it’s a master of  the unexpected. (THAT is an understatement, huh? Case in point: this blog.)

Sometimes, just when you think you can’t possibly have another unexpected development, there will be one. Sometimes it involves your children. Other times it involves family or career or health or friends. Occasionally it might even involve man friends–if you happen to have my freakish “good” luck.

“O, what men dare do! what men may do! what men daily do, not knowing what they do!” (William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing)

Last month, several months after my engagement to Bachelor #5 (in fact, if his original wedding plan had worked out, I’d have been married) I got a text message.

Completely out of the blue.

“You married or single?”

He’s Ba-ack! (Hint: Read with Jack Nicholson’s “The Shining” lilting emphasis.)

The Stalker.

I told him I was single, and before I could explain further, his texts began to fly. When I could finally get a text in, I clarified I was not married, but engaged. His texts ended as quickly and unexpectedly as they had come. And in his haste, he must have forgotten to tell me how happy he is for me! The Stalker hasn’t been seen or heard from again.

Later that SAME evening, I heard from The Ghostbuster. “Who you gonna call?” I guess, Andrea Merriman. He was friendly, gave me the update on his life (as if 6-7 months of no communication wasn’t indicative of where things stood from my end) and finally asked how I was.

“Engaged,” I replied.

The conversation ended. Not even a “congratulations,” heartfelt or otherwise. I haven’t heard from him again either.

“Save a boyfriend for a rainy day – and another, in case it doesn’t rain.” (Mae West)

No thanks.

“I can see clearly now the rain is gone.” (Johnny Nash)

Bachelor #5 And The Pinky Swear

Date: October 8, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“To pinky swear (in some regions referred to as the pinky promise) is when two people entwine their pinky fingers…to signify that a promise has been made…Traditionally, the pinky swear is considered binding and tantamount to a handshake in terms of sealing a deal. The pinky swear originally indicated that the person who breaks the promise must cut off their pinky finger…The pinky swear signifies a promise that cannot be broken or counteracted by the crossing of fingers, the “I take it back” or any other trickery.” (WIkipedia)

The September wedding date wasn’t going to work.

I informed my children. They seemed disappointed, except for my oldest. He looked worried and advised, “Don’t push it off too far, Mom, or he’ll lose interest and dump you!” (Have I mentioned how much I appreciate the confidence my children have in my ability to hold the interest of a man? Lol.)

My son was apparently very concerned that pushing back the date meant Bachelor #5 wasn’t going to follow through with marrying his mother.

When I told Bachelor #5 about that conversation he laughed and offered to “pinky swear” promise to marry me in January, and told me not to worry, he ALWAYS keeps his pinky swear promises!

I’m pretty sure I know four children who plan to hold him to that.

“Broken promises don’t upset me. I just think, why did they believe me?” (Jack Handy)

A Seriously Small World

Date: August 13, 2010  Author: Andrea Merriman

“Aw, man, it’s a small world!” (“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” 2001)

We talked. We laughed. We shared experiences from our lives. It was uncanny how much we had in common. Seriously, a LOT in common. Even some of the same friends!

As an adult I’d made an older friend in Colorado. She had adopted her children and once we got on the subject of adoption; I told her I had been adopted too. She asked me what I knew of my birth mother and I told her everything except my birth mother’s name. Turns out, my friend had gone to the same university in Utah as my birth mother and had been on the same dance team! She wanted to know the name, she was just sure she’d know her.

I was afraid of that, too. Which is why I didn’t feel I could tell anyone the name. (I learned to be a lot more circumspect after that. I was learning how seriously small the world is.) So instead, my friend told me her maiden name and told me to go home and look at the pictures I was in possession of and see if she was in them.

She was.

I didn’t get back with her, hoping my friend would forget all about it, but she followed up with me. I admitted she was in the pictures with my birth mother and told her she probably had known my birth mother. She racked her brain trying to figure out who my birth mother could be. For years. But she never mentioned any names and I never volunteered any information.

In the meantime, we continued to visit together about once a month, and even went out to lunch for my birthday for several years.

The first time I met my birth mother in person, at some point in the evening I said, “Oh! I think I might know someone you know!” I mentioned my friend and our association over several years, revealed the woman’s first name but was struggling to remember her maiden name, when my birth mother named it for me.

She said, “Not only do I know her, she was my best friend all through college. We were roommates. I was the matron of honor at her wedding!”

How is THAT for a small world? A seriously small world!

“It’s a small world. No kidding.” (“Just Friends,” 2005)